Skin cancer is the most common cancer in the US. It affects over 600,000 Americans every year, accounting for 1% of all cancer deaths. The mortality from melanoma has increased in recent years, especially in white males, possibly as a result of increased recreational exposure to sunlight.
Detection and surgical treatment of the early stages of this malignancy are usually curative. In contrast, diagnosis and treatment in late stages often have dismal results.
Histopathological examination, which is a diagnostic method of a tissue specimen, is the most important medical tool in process of diagnosis. The histopathological diagnosis of melanoma is based upon architectural (symmetry, circumscription, maturation, nests, arrangement, distribution) and cytological (atypicality, mitosis, necrosis) criteria. Every suspected melanoma to be diagnosed should be surgically excised. A biopsy is mandatory in order to establish a histopathological diagnosis. Nowadays, pathologists have known criteria list that has to be checked by the pathologist in order to diagnose the specimen. The pathological criteria are crucial in order to establish accurate diagnosis.
The following prior art publications are known to the applicant:
U.S. Pat. No. 5,297,034 discloses a system for providing pathology diagnostic opinions to physicians at sites remote from where the consulting pathologist is physically located.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,939,278 discloses a method and apparatus for semi-automating a cell classification process using at least primary and secondary classifications followed by review by a skilled technician.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,965,725 refers to a neural network based automated cytological specimen classification system and method. It discloses an automated screening system and method for cytological specimen classification.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,287,272, 5,544,650 and 5,740,270 relate to the same patent family of the above patents and disclose an automated cytological specimen classification systems and method based on an automated cytological specimen classifier for detection of atypical cells.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,889,881 and 6,026,174 teach methods and apparatus or system for automatically detecting malignancy-associated changes in cell samples. U.S. Pat. No. 5,218,645 also concerns a method and apparatus for analyzing cell objects of a cell sample for diagnosis. These methods detect malignancy in a cell sample and do not include histopathology diagnosis of the tissue. A cytological examination is a method to obtain single cells or a cluster of cells. Cytological examination does not include examination of architectural or structural cell formations, but just a smear of a single cell and for this reason is not diagnostic per se. Cytological procedure is contraindicated in the context of suspected melanoma of the skin because it is not a diagnostic procedure and furthermore, it may cause spreading of malignant cells.
The technological breakthroughs of the last few years in computers and especially the Internet have greatly affected our lives. Computers and Internet applications have entered into the realms of medicine and are a critical factor in the scientific advancement of medical research and its clinical applications.
When a patient's case is complex, rare or the person making the diagnosis is simply inexperienced, an expert system can help come up with likely diagnoses based on digital images and clinical data. Furthermore, many medical images can now be automatically interpreted, from plain X-rays through to more complex images like angiograms, CT and MRI scans. This is of value in mass-screenings, for example, when a system can flag potentially abnormal images for detailed human attention. Nevertheless, although this rapid advancement there is no current method or system that can generate a computerized histopathological examination let alone analysis or diagnosis.
In view of the above, there is a need for a computerized medical decision support system for the examination and diagnosis of benign and malignant pathologies.